


Of All the Promises

by Lune_qui_vit_dans_ses_Reves



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Also Tony deserves a happy ending as well, Also could Natasha get a fleshed out background?, And that people won't play with it? Because we will., Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Because the one(s) that exist really could use some work., Because time travel is my favorite thing to work with, But still that doesn't mean I can't be upset about it., Do they really think that they can give us time travel and a multiverse, F/M, Gen, I understand why what happened happened, Kind of Endgame Fixit, Natasha Romanov deserved better, Not a lot of action… Sorry action is not my strong point, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 05:21:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18613972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lune_qui_vit_dans_ses_Reves/pseuds/Lune_qui_vit_dans_ses_Reves
Summary: Finding himself reunited with Peggy after returning the Infinity Stones to their rightful place, they make three promises to each other:1. They would never regret the time they had now been given2. Tony would grow up with the most supportive Aunt and Uncle on Earth.3. When the time came, they would do everything they could to give Natasha the life she should have had.This is how Steve keeps one of those promises.





	Of All the Promises

**Author's Note:**

> They sincerely can not give us a multiverse and time travel in one movie and not expect everyone to play around with it. To that extent, I'm playing hard and fast with canon dates. I was trying to use Natasha's retconned background, but that didn't fit so well, so let's just assume that it's the standard canon found in the movies (DOB - 1984). This is also what happens when they kill off some of my favorite characters AND send Steve into the past. Do they really expect him not to try and fix what he can fix? Also, apologies, I haven't actually written anything in quite a few years, so apologies for any mistakes or grammatical errors. My lovely beta is avoiding all spoilers, so it was just me this time around.

A part of Steve knew that what he was doing was wrong. That he was somehow messing up the timeline in such a way that there would be no feasible way for the world that he now found himself living in to converge with the one that he had left. Sure, Bruce had shared his hypothesis that once all of the Infinity Stones were correctly put back in their rightful places, the worlds which had splintered into a seemingly endless multiverse would merge back to the one simple world they had once known. Yet, this world... In this world he hadn’t been frozen for a hundred years and become a man out of time. In this world, he loved Peggy and was able to tell her that every day of their life together. In this world, they were married. In this world, they had a family. In this world, well, if this truly was his world, then there were things he wanted to make sure happened. 

Leaving his team behind, those who had become his friends, and truly his family in the years after he had woken up to a strange new world, was perhaps the hardest thing about going back in time. Sure he missed the colorful screens of TVs, the portable computers which were so much stronger than the ones that currently existed, having a phone in his pocket, and being able to google anything and instantaneously knowing far too much about what he just googled, but, he missed his team the most. Thor, Bruce, Clint, and Tony and Natasha. Those who had done whatever it takes to return the world to what it was before the snap; those who had made the ultimate sacrifice. Yes, if this was his world now, then he wanted his family to have the best life possible as well. 

In a way he felt like he had failed his promise of a better life for Tony. Yes, his presence had helped melt the ice that had always existed between father and son, and Tony had grown up with not only two parents who loved him and told him so, but also with a loving Aunt Peg and Uncle Steve. Tony had grown up as close as a cousin to their boys - coming over to play as often that it seemed like he was one of their own. They had cheered on his every accomplishment as a child and had been in the front row next to Howard, Maria and Jarvis when he graduated from MIT. And yet it seemed like somethings were simply fixed points in time. Even though he - and Peggy, because he could and would keep no secrets from his wife - knew how Howard and Maria had died that December 16, 1991 in the old timeline, they could have never foreseen what would have happened in this world. Howard and Maria had died due to actions of the Winter Soldier who had made it look like an accident, and while he and Peggy, and SHIELD, had done everything they could do to prevent it from happening once more, there had no way to predict that a teenager would have had too much to drink, misjudged the curve of the road due to the fog in the air, and slid on ice. All actions that ended up causing an eerily similar accident to that which had been staged long ago. This time, however, it was Steve and Peggy who Tony called and who sat with him outside of the hospital room. This time, Tony felt more than anger over what had happened. This time, he poured time, effort and money into a foundation to teach teenagers the dangers of drinking and driving, and created technology to show them why it was important. And this time, this time Tony knew that his father had been proud of him. However, this time Steve would not fail Natasha. 

Of all the goodbyes Steve had said before he traveled back to return the stones to their rightful places, it was perhaps the ones that he didn’t get to say which stung the most. Everyone who had been snapped had returned, but those who died before the five stones had been collected were gone forever. Gamora and Natasha. So while everyone else was reunited, those two were gone for good. He had been able to say goodbye to Tony - a grave not the best way to say goodbye, but a goodbye at least and a vow to do whatever it takes to do better this around - but not to Natasha. Nat. Nat who had been his partner, his right hand man (or woman) for those years before the snap and after it, the one he could count on to have his back, and most importantly, his friend. 

For as long as he had known her, she had wanted to clear the red off her ledger, something Clint had said she had more than accomplished when the dust had settled after the final battle and everyone had been able to reflect on of those they had lost and those who had been reunited. The red on her ledger had been a driving force for her actions for years and had colored the many decisions she made. But perhaps, just perhaps, there was a way to prevent the red from ever being introduced in the first place. And that was how he found himself standing in the dusty hallway of the Stalingrad orphanage. He knew from the few details that Nat had shared about her life during the various missions the two of them had undertaken - when she had grilled him about his past, his love life, and really anything that came to mind and offered a precious crumb of herself in return - that she remembered very little of her life before the Red Room. But, she did remember the few days she had spent at the orphanage before her childhood was taken away forever. So, when intel had arrived at SHIELD about a young red headed orphan arriving at the Stalingrad Orphanage who was rumored to have caught the attention of the KGB, they had needed to move quickly. 

It had been a plan that Peggy and Steve had been planning for years - originating from the bounty of information he had shared with her that night in the kitchen after he had turned up on her doorstep, a few roses in hand and a sheepish smile on his face. Reunions had been had, and after the roses were added to a vase which was lovingly placed in the corner of her kitchen, always a woman of action, Peggy had directed him to a seat and asked him how it was possible that he was there in the flesh. There were three promises they had made that night as they started to make up for all the time they had lost:  
1\. They would never regret the time they had now been given. (And they never had)  
2\. Tony would grow up with the most supportive Aunt and Uncle on Earth. (And while they had perhaps embarrassed him too many times to count, he had never once turned away their support and seemed to bask in it.)  
3\. When the time came, they would do everything they could to give Natasha the life she should have had. 

Which had led him to this moment. Peggy had so wanted to join him, to help reassure Natasha that theirs would be a good life and to hug the little girl who she had considered to be a daughter for the many years since Steve had first mentioned her name. Unfortunately, she had been needed at the Headquarters - she was the Director, after all - and while they would have waited another day, word had come that there were plans in place to steal Natasha away in the night. So, he here he stood outside the imposing dark wood door, alone. The last time he had seen her, the old her, it had been that moment before they had left for their separate missions to retrieve the stones. She had stood next to Clint, a tiny hopeful smile on her face, that when they returned with the soul stone, that the world would soon become right again. But she had never came back. He had had over twenty years to prepare himself for this moment and to try and separate the Nat he had known from the Natasha he would meet. He didn’t expect for her to ever consider him her father, but he did hope that one day he would think of him as a friend. 

Steeling himself, he quietly pushed open the heavy cherry wood door. Inside he could see a small girl perched on table, her legs swinging back and forth as she hummed an unknown song quietly to herself. Her eyes stayed fixated on the window and, more importantly, on the snowflakes dancing through the air and glimmering in the sun - the light reflecting off of the billows of snow and causing her scarlet curls to shimmer. Knocking quietly as not to startle the little girl, he entered the room and as she turned around to face him, a smile still playing on her mouth, he asked his voice catching ever so slightly, “Hello Natalia. Would you like to come home?”

**Author's Note:**

> For some reason I just really like the idea of Steve knowing what happened to Tony and Natasha in their childhoods and doing everything in his power to try and rectify it. I also like the idea of Natasha growing up around Peggy and learning everything from her - can you imagine that? Anyways, thank you so much for taking the time to read this and I hope you have a lovely day!


End file.
